TWO THIRDS of Retina iPad mini shoppers will weep this holiday season If someone on your holiday shopping list is a-hankerin' for Apple's just-released iPad mini with Retina display, you may want to get in line with the fanbois on the morning when the li'l fellas finally appear on store shelves sometime in November – there won't be many of them to go around. According to the market-watchers at …
"They must be. They intentionally limit stock for every release and the iSheep still fall for it."
Umm... did you read the article? Supplies are constrained by manufacturing, which is not a deliberate limitation. And selling only 4 million in Q4 is bad. Real bad. Apple typically sells 5 million of the new thing in the first week. Selling 4 million over 4 to 6 weeks would be a catastrophic product release.
Yes I read it, and I also know a lot more about what's happening back in the real world in Asustek, flex, foxconn and other key EMS than any random website tells you. There is no shortages, it's a smokescreen for poor sales and a way to try and kickstart demand.
Hmm, there is a faint aroma of ratus ratus.
Each "new release" quarter, sales drop as buyers hold off buying the old one and there are not enough new stock to go around. The article claims this is down to specific component shortages. Either Apple is consistently poor at forecasting demand or this anal secrecy is actually a bad thing commercially as sales are 'lost'. Or maybe 8 out of 10 cats who said "Yes, I will buy the new iWotsit" just thought it was a cool thing to say to a researcher.
The fact that this keeps happening (finger print sensor on 5S was the last incident) makes it amazing that analysts and the stock market seem to think these guys are wizards.
Meanwhile Samsung have had 'poor sales' of 40M S4s ( plus S4 mini, active, Note 2 &3) it makes you laugh!
"64-bit architecture, durability, ease of operating system upgrades and richness of the Apple ecosystem ... makes the math work."
64-bit? I suspect Android devices will have 64-bit when it's required for RAM, but otherwise it's just a spec - and Android devices are doing fine on things like CPU performance and RAM (the original ipad mini only had 512MB, even budget Android tablets have more).
Durability? Are we using them as bricks to make a house?
OS upgrades, fine on a Nexus 7 at least.
"Ecosystem" is spin for "hardware lock in", something not to be praised. But on apps, Google leads - first to a million. (And don't say there are more apps optimised for an ipad - that's a 10" device, so not optimised for an 8" device.)
We're not value-centric, we got the best device for any amount of money. Even people buying Tesco's value Hudl got a tablet with higher resolution and twice the RAM as Apple's offering of the same time.
The ARMv8 instruction set is faster and more efficient than ARMv7. The move to 64 bit was in order to get this, not access to more memory. I've little doubt that Android machines will get 64 bit processors sooner rather than later. The only question is how quickly Google will adapt Dalvik, their virtual machine environment, to best make use of that.
I agree. Analists (sic) mention the architecture in a sad attempt to convince us that they are tech-savvy - the vast majority of customers for retail electronic devices wouldn't know what a 64–bit system was if it bit them in the arse and its presence would have zero effect on their decision to buy. All they are interested in is "does it just work?" (to coin a phrase) and is their new precious "shiney shiny".
I disagree. 64-bit computing is a notion that has probably seeped into the public's awareness by now – even if they don't have a clue what it actually means. Not the Nine O'Clock News did something similar with woofers and tweeters donkeys' years ago.
The armchair economists here might pause to think that Apple are sitting on the biggest pile of cash in history, so as a business they're doing pretty well. They probably don't need you to tell them how they need to go about presenting and marketing their stuff.
.......of what I actually posted. To take two of your points:
1. " even if they don't have a clue what it actually means." That was pretty much what I said. Some may have heard of it but they " wouldn't know what a 64–bit system was if it bit them in the arse."
2. "They probably don't need you to tell them how they need to go about presenting and marketing their stuff. Absolutely nowhere in my post did I even mention Apple, it was indeed abundantly clear from my piece that it was the analysts I was referring to, hence my visual play on words when I said "Analists (sic) mention the architecture....."
You are by definition fully entitled to disagree with what I have posted but I take serious exception to point number 2 which was in fact based on something I had not said or even implied, I made no attempt in that post to advise Cupertino about anything at all. Posting that kind of thing is thoroughly dishonest.
Dear Touchy Arctic Fox,
Point 1: We both stated that consumers generally don't know what 64-bit computing is. But my statement pointed out that despite this, consumers know about it and will see it as something worth having. Whereas you, in your infallible opinion, stated quite explicitly that All they are interested in is "does it just work?" (to coin a phrase) and is their new precious "shiney shiny". Those are diametrically opposite points of view.
Point 2: I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about armchair economists in general. Especially the kind who would take your advice about how consumers make their purchasing decisions.
I take exception to your assertion that I am a thoroughly dishonest person.
Take a stress pill or something.
As an armchair economist of long standing, I would point out that if a company is sitting on a huge pile of cash, that is because it has performed well (or indeed, very well) in the past. This, in itself, is no guide to the present of future performance of the company.
Paris because she knows a lot about huge piles of cash.
Indeed, from that graph the total number of iPads shipped (by my very rough count) is 155 Billion.
That's over 20 tablets for everyone on the planet (in 3 and a half years!), leading me to scientifically conclude that either:
a) Amazon have just built new warehouses to squirrel away all the iPads they've bought so that the Kindle Fire can flourish, or
b) Apple's grand marketing plan is to have users buy dozens of the buggers and install one app per device. "there's an iPad for that."
or maybe c) IHS are talking baws.
I'm still with iPad3. Cannot stand the widescreen aspect that most of the tablet market follows. Not too tempted by the air tho', no fingerprint unlock and I don't really play any games that need that power omph, and no extra battery life. I'm also lucky enough to be strong enough that I can hold the iPad3 in one hand for some time before becoming fatigued.
Ideal tablet still waiting for: 4.3 ratio, pressure sensitive with pen included @ a Google price with offline voice and text recognition.
Apple did a very late about turn and realised they would be a laughing stock when they released their planned low resolution A7 Mini.
Obviously supply is constrained, suppliers have only just started making them.
But at least you get something better than that ridiculously cheap 1024 x 768 original.
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